


Netting Stars

by fireflysglow_archivist



Category: Firefly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-09-16
Updated: 2004-09-16
Packaged: 2019-04-29 08:25:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14468754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fireflysglow_archivist/pseuds/fireflysglow_archivist
Summary: Note from alice ttlg, the archivist: this story was originally archived atFirefly’s Glow, and was moved to the AO3 as part of the Open Doors project in 2018.  I tried to reach out to all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are the creator and would like to claim this work, please contact me using the e-mail address onFirefly's Glow collection profile.





	Netting Stars

**Author's Note:**

> Note from alice ttlg, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [Firefly’s Glow](https://fanlore.org/wiki/Firefly%27s_Glow), and was moved to the AO3 as part of the Open Doors project in 2018. I tried to reach out to all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are the creator and would like to claim this work, please contact me using the e-mail address on [Firefly's Glow collection profile](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/fireflysglow/profile).

Netting Stars

## Netting Stars

The music drifted through _Serenity_ , and River slowly tracked it along the metal walls and floors, feeling it rise and fall with her limbs and in her blood. It was the Shepherd's music: Book enjoys old things, and this music dates back to Earth-That-Was. It spoke to River of a world as measured and mannered as her upbringing on Osiris had been: it was both reassuring and somehow a disappointment. 

She pirouetted lightly, bare feet on cold deck plates, making the music whirl to catch up with her; and spread her arms, conducting with grace, commanding the piano and violins. 

Kaylee, on her way to the engine room, stopped to stare, eyes wide and candid. When she went on her way, she was smiling with wonder. 

"Say, Simon!" she hailed cheerfully, putting her head around the door of the infirmary, a slight detour. "River dances awful well, don't she? She moves just like a plant blowin' in a breeze." 

"That she does." He was working, cataloguing their dwindling medical supplies, but any mention of his sister drew his attention instantly. Now he looked up to smile. "River's dancing?" 

"Sure she is. Come an' see." 

Simon looked at the small collection of drug samples on the counter, and prudently swept them into a drawer before following the mechanic; anything left out tended to disappear when Jayne came near the infirmary. 

"River!" 

Her brother was worried about her again; River heard but couldn't spare the time to reassure him. She was busy keeping time. One, two, arabesque, step and... 

"River! _Mei-mei_ , please, just come down from there." 

River glanced down at him as she turned, poised on the narrow railing around the upper level of the cargo hold. 

"Can't stop," she told him patiently. "Or the music will get lost. Forget the pattern. I'm teaching it what to be." 

"Did that make any sense to you?" Simon appealed to Kaylee, without taking his gaze off River, stepping quietly forward, trying not to startle her into slipping. 

"River, sweetie, you can dance on the floor," Kaylee said, holding out her hand. River leaned over slightly to take it and leapt to the floor, then used Kaylee as the centre of her dance for a few steps before releasing her and floating down the passage, whisper soft on the floor that echoed any hard tread. 

"How did you _do_ that?" Simon turned a bewildered look on Kaylee. 

"She weren't scared. Steady as a rock up there; she weren't goin' to fall 'less she got scared. So you just stay calm and ask, that's all. River don't mean to worry no one, Simon," she said comfortingly. 

"No," he said distractedly, peering after River for a moment before looking intently at Kaylee. "She's lucky to have you looking out for her. I think she would have liked to have a sister, as well as a brother." 

Kaylee smiled brightly. "Well, now she's got everybody." 

Her intention couldn't be faulted, but it wasn't quite what he'd meant and his own smile faltered at the thought that Jayne also belonged to this eclectic `everybody'. 

"One big happy family," he mumbled sarcastically. 

He was reproached by the dimming of Kaylee's warmth. 

"Guess I'd better get back to the engine," she said, and scuffed her feet as she turned. 

Stupefied into silence by the fact that he had, yet again, forced his foot into his mouth, Simon finally called, "Wait," just after she'd rounded the corner. She was gone, and he dithered and ran both hands despairingly into his hair as he sighed. Following in his little sister's wake, he wondered how it could be possible that a brilliant doctor could be more inept at social interaction than _Jayne_. Even the brash mercenary didn't manage to upset Kaylee often. In fact, only Simon and the captain seemed to dent her cheerful aura regularly, and of the two, Simon had a significant lead. 

As he stepped into the mess, River faced him disapprovingly. "You turned the light off," she informed him, and he groaned. 

"I know. I just can't seem to say anything right!" 

She gave him the dubious look he had been receiving from her since she was five. 

"Turn it back on," she said witheringly, making him feel even more like an idiot child. 

"How?" If he was taking his _mei-mei's_ advice, he was really in trouble, he reflected. River's gaze sharpened as if she knew what had passed through his mind. 

"All life comes from the sun's energy." 

Simon paused as he tried to work out that out, finding the links of her thought process a cryptic web. 

"Yes," he agreed hopelessly. 

She arched her grubby bare foot proudly and danced a pace, then stopped and looked back at him. 

"Light and heat, shining everywhere. Even in space. In _Serenity_. In you and Kaylee. Not here...she's cold." 

She sank off her tiptoes and shivered. 

"I'll find you a blanket." Simon tucked his arm round her and led her back towards their quarters. "There's solar energy in you too, you know." 

"No sun. She's not alive," she stated, and smiled bravely, clutching the blanket around her. 

He hugged her, wondering if it would ever stop. The damage to River's brain couldn't be mended, and all the medications he had tried so far lost efficacy over time, soothing and clearing her mind for a few hours before he lost her again, back in the tides of tenuous metaphor and word-associated facts. She was getting worse, and he worried about that and struggled to find a solution that held for more than hours, more than days, and tried not to wonder what would happen if he couldn't. He had to face the fact, though: if he couldn't do it, then it wouldn't be done. Only a major hospital had the facilities to help River, and they were far too risky. He was the best she had, but good as he was, could he really be enough? What would happen if he couldn't help her? 

"I'll be a sun for both of us, then," he fumbled with her allusive images. "Until your light comes back." 

"You're my brother," she said impishly, and flopped back suddenly, sprawled on the bed as if she was too tired to move. "Brother, father, son," she chanted, a look in her eye that said she was humouring _him_. 

"Brother, doctor, babysitter," he retorted. 

She shut her eyes, and said matter-of-factly, "No babies on _Serenity_ yet. Maybe a baby Simon later." 

"A baby-!" He closed his mouth, feeling the heat in his face. "I don't think so, River." 

"A sun. A little sun for Kaylee because she wants to borrow Simon's heat." 

" _River!_ " 

She gave a pert grin without opening her eyes, and burrowed under the covers, probably aware that he craved peace too much to disturb her if she might sleep. 

Simon waited an exasperated five minutes, until he was sure she was settled, before he went back to his checks in the infirmary. Unable to forget them, he mulled over her words with disbelief. _A little son - a baby Simon_. 

It was a terrible idea, he thought angrily, even supposing for a single second it was plausible. He couldn't even keep track of River, or keep her safe; what sort of place was _Serenity_ for a baby? It simply wasn't possible. It was one of River's crazier notions, like when Saffron came aboard as the captain's 'wife' and his sister had wanted to marry him. It was insane. Appealing as the image of Kaylee cuddled up with a babe in her arms might be. 

* * *

He was more awkward than usual at dinner, and when Kaylee asked him to pass the bread, he tipped most of it off the plate. It bounced off the table and into her lap and in Zoe's food, and there was a brief pause filled with stares as he hurriedly scooped up the stray chunks.

"There ain't so much bread out in the black, doctor, that we can afford to toss it around," Mal observed. 

"No, of course not," Simon stammered wretchedly. 

The captain nodded and turned his attention back to his meal, and most of the crew followed suit. Jayne eyeballed him a second longer, and pointed with his fork. 

"Do we really want them shaky hands cuttin' on us?" 

"The doc's good at his work," Mal said curtly. 

"Yes." Zoe barely smiled. "It's just everything else that ain't safe round him." 

"That ain't fair." 

That was Kaylee, of course, peacemaker and the silver lining to the clouds that covered his future. 

"He was watchin' River and his hand slipped." 

He had glanced at his sister as he lifted the plate. She was very quiet, and sometimes that heralded a violent outburst. 

"Well, she does tend to take more watching than the bread," Book said agreeably, and the talk moved on, to Simon's gratitude. 

* * *

He woke later, in the dark, and knew almost before he checked that River was gone, had slipped out again to wander the ship alone. He wanted to put his head under the pillow and pretend he didn't know, and sat up sleepily.   
She wasn't in the mess, or the cargo hold, or the empty shuttle; he didn't want to disturb Inara until he'd tried everywhere else. He didn't bother to check the infirmary, no chance that she'd be there voluntarily. The bridge, perhaps, she liked seeing the stars. He went up, but it was deserted.

Puzzled now, he headed back through the ship. 

Most of the crew's rooms were closed up this late, but Kaylee's door was open; she must be in her hammock in the engine room. He checked the cargo hold more carefully on his way back, but River wasn't there. She wasn't supposed to go in the engine room, but it looked like that was where he'd find her. 

He paused just outside the engine room, listening to Kaylee's voice, reassured by the evidence that the mechanic had company, and River wasn't investigating the engine alone. 

"An' then they took a-hold of the net, an' threw it into the pond, an' the splash messed up the water so they couldn't see the moon anymore." 

The delight in Kaylee's tone made him smile. Children's stories? He sneaked closer, peering round the doorway; both of them were crammed in the hammock, which would spill them onto the floor if they moved. River was curled against Kaylee's shoulder, watching the spin of the...main bulk of the engine: Simon wasn't too sure what it was called. 

"...pull up the net, there was nothin' in it! An' Brer Rabbit there was rollin' about laughing." 

He remembered the tale now, one that he'd found too whimsical even as a young boy. A very old story, one from Earth-That-Was, he thought, a story of trying to catch the moon when it was only a reflection. It was sweet of Kaylee to mind River, and he hoped his sister wasn't going to be scornful of the childish fable. 

"Can't catch the Moon that way," River interrupted solemnly. "The Moon's mean distance from Earth is approximately 384,400 km." 

"Well, ain't that somethin'." Kaylee sounded more appreciative than anything, and Simon relaxed against the bulkhead. 

There were no moons this far out into the black, and moons were big enough to have a solidity about them. Trapping and prolonging River's periods of lucidity was more like netting stars than the Moon; smaller objects that would fall through the mesh even if he wasn't fishing for illusions. Trawling the infinite for brief glitters of hope... perhaps River's poetic babble was affecting him too. He spent enough time sifting through it for meaning, after all, and hadn't the ancients once thought madness was catching? 

"Lunacy, from lunar, moon. Blue moon. Blue hands...moon crazy. Two by two," River said fretfully. "Two by two, hands of blue, two by-." 

"No blue hands here, River. Look, yours are all pale and pretty, and mine are covered in engine oil." 

Her wry note reached through River's growing agitation, and Simon, who had stepped unnoticed into the engine room, eased back into the passageway. It might be unfair, but it would help ease his constant anxiety if someone else proved capable of calming River. 

River touched one of Kaylee's work stained hands curiously. 

" _Serenity_ 's marked you," she said, peering over Kaylee's palm as if reading the lines. "Ship's yours." 

"And the captain's," Kaylee agreed. "But I'm ship's mechanic, so she's my girl. Settle down, so's I can finish." 

River went quiet and still, and Kaylee took it for assent, and rounded off the tale quickly. 

"Now, let's get you back to bed before Simon worries." 

"Simon isn't worried. He'd like a different story." 

"What?" Kaylee sat straighter to peer into the passageway, and the overfull hammock tipped. River sprang gracefully free and Kaylee bumped to the deck, scrambling quickly up. 

"Oh, my," she laughed ruefully, meeting Simon's gaze. "Forgot to be careful, there. No harm done, right, River?" 

"No work for Simon," the girl agreed. 

"That's good." He looked at the little mechanic. "Thanks for watching her. She didn't wake me when she left." 

"No harm done," she repeated firmly. "She's happy here, and she's careful." 

"As long as you're here," he said hesitantly. "If you don't mind..." 

"She's company." Kaylee stretched. "Gettin' late, though, best get some sleep. 'Night, River. 'Night, Simon." 

"Goodnight," Simon said wistfully as the mechanic retreated down the corridor. 

"Sunset," River murmured, leaning perilously close to the engine, and Simon started. 

"Come away from there, _mei-mei_." 

River gave him a tolerant look, but did as she was told. 

"Come on, back to bed." He shepherded her along the corridor, a slight warmth inside. Maybe Kaylee would help River remember how to be a child again. 

She stopped moving, and Simon fell over his own feet as he tried not to step on her. 

"Now what?" he looked at her askance. 

River was rooted to the deck plates, swaying, her hands fluttering for a moment in an invisible wind. 

"Sun tides. Hot wind." 

She wasn't seeing him although her face was turned to his; her attention had wandered to the chartless spaces that so often claimed her. 

"Solar flare - gone now." 

She didn't blink as awareness of here-and-now welled back into her eyes, she just smiled knowingly. 

"Sun's still there, behind the clouds. Bedtime, Simon!" 

Her sudden bossiness was irresistible, and he let her hustle him into their room, and smiled as he covered her up. 

"Sweet dreams, _mei-mei_." 

Sliding back into his own blankets, he shut his eyes meditatively. _A baby Simon_. 

"Ridiculous," he murmured sleepily, River's words from the day streaming through his mind as he tried to make sense of her more obscure sayings. _Sun - son - sun, stars and warmth and light_ , but his last thought as sleep blanked his mind was of Kaylee. 

* * *

 

 

 

 

 

 

Title:   **Netting Stars**   
Author:   **Kraken**   
Details:   **Standalone**  |  **PG-13**  |  **gen**  |  **14k**  |  **09/16/04**   
Characters:  Kaylee, Simon, River   
  



End file.
